by Tyler, Q. B.
“She’ll be eighteen in less than a week, Henry.” I grit out. A dark thought crosses my mind as I know the law better than anyone. Feelings of shame move through me as I think about what I’ve done. A lump forms in my throat and a shiver slithers down my spine like a snake.
You should have waited, Cal.
Laws are in place for a fucking reason.
“You expect me to believe…you expect anyone to believe you haven’t been fucking her for God knows how long?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Bullshit. I saw the way you two were acting at Thanksgiving. I knew something was off the way you treated Penelope on our date…And why are we even arguing the semantics of her goddamn age? THIS IS MADDIE!” he screams, his face full of rage and fury as he spits out her name like he’s damning her. “How can you look at yourself in the fucking mirror? You met her when she was seven years old. And you wormed your way into her heart like a fucking pedophile. God, have you been preparing her for this her whole life?”
“Don’t be disgusting, Henry,” I snarl.
“I’m disgusting? That’s what they’re going to say about you, Cal. It’ll be a witch hunt and they’ll burn you at the stake.”
The television which had been blaring suddenly shuts off and a quiet sob cuts through the tension. My eyes flicker to movement in my peripheral to see Maddie standing there with tears in her eyes, streaming down her pale cheeks. She’s completely dressed, in yoga pants and one of my Academy t-shirts, that really doesn’t do much for our case. Her wet hair, pulled into a bun on the top of her head, matched my wet hair. “Henry…”
“Maddie…” He takes a step towards her, and I grip his arm hard because, in this moment, I just see him as a man, a threat, that wants to touch my girl.
“Don’t,” I growl. He looks at me, and to my surprise, stands down. I suppose even in this moment, he knows better than to fuck with me when it comes to Maddie. “Madeline, go upstairs,” I tell her. Our eyes meet, and for a second I believe she’ll obey, but instead she takes a step closer to us.
She wipes her eyes and shakes her head before pointing at my brother. “Henry, this really isn’t your business.”
“Cal has you brainwashed, sweetheart. You can’t stay here.” My nostrils flare as anger courses through my veins making me feel like I could rip my brother apart. I’ll kill him before I let him take her anywhere.
“There’s nowhere else for me,” she whispers.
“Maddie, you need to come with me. It’s not right…you, here with him. This isn’t healthy and he’s ruining you.”
“No!” she cries and I grip his arm harder, worried for a moment that I’ll pull his arm from its socket if he tries to take another step towards her.
“What would Aria say? What would Mom say? To know that you’ve been sleeping with the girl you raised?” He stares at me. The disgust is there. The judgment. The anger. But I sense something else hidden beneath the rage.
Worry.
Fear.
Maybe deep down, he knew this was more. But he knew. He knew the world wouldn’t let me have her.
Not without a fight.
A fight I was more than willing to give.
I’d burn the world to the ground for Maddie and the look in his eyes tells me he knows that.
“I would hope they’d understand that I love him…” Maddie interjects, her voice full of conviction. “You’re acting like he’s my dad, Henry…and he’s not.”
“That’s what everyone sees him as, Madeline. Tell me you’re not so naive that you think they won’t nail Cal to the wall for this.” He turns to me. “You can kiss your job, your praise, your accolades, all of it. Done. You’re finished here, Cal.”
“So, you’re planning to lead this witch hunt? You’re planning to villainize him?” Maddie asks. “What kind of big brother does that?”
His eyes flare with anger that I’ve never seen before. “The kind that is protecting a child.”
“I’m not a child, Henry. And no one has protected me better than Cal.”
“Maddie…” I nod at her, “can you please go upstairs?” I don’t want her around for the rest of this conversation, as I can’t be certain about what else will come out of Henry’s mouth. She nods obediently before turning to Henry.
“I understand that you’re shocked and confused and maybe a little…” I can tell she’s struggling to find the right word, “concerned…but Cal has never done wrong by me. In that regard, nothing’s changed.”
As soon as Maddie is out of sight, I let go of his arm and he turns to me, his stance is still combative and the disgust in his eyes sends a pang of guilt to my soul. My brother and I have always been close, and I could sense the rift forming and growing in our relationship by the second. “How could you do that to her?”
“Henry it’s not like that.”
“Oh?” He scoffs. “Then what’s it like?”
I rub the back of my neck. Despite my brother’s anger, I want to try to make him understand. If he didn’t, it would be the end of our relationship. I know that. I’m never going to give Maddie up, and if he doesn’t understand, I doubt he would want to be a part of the narrative that included her and me together. “Things have changed.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I love her…”
“You’ve always loved her…that’s the fucking problem,” he snaps.
“You’re making this into something dirty when it’s not. Tonight, was the first night we took that step. Tonight, was the first night I touched her…” I rub my index finger and thumb together. It was something I always did when I felt the need for a cigarette. I had quit smoking years ago when Maddie came home with tears in her eyes that she didn’t want me to die after a particularly harrowing lesson in her health education class. It took every patch, and gum, and ounce of willpower to quit, but I did. Because she asked me to. Although the craving still hits me in the face during times of stress. Like now.
Maddie will have a fit if you have one.
“I fell in love with her,” I continue.
“That’s bullshit. You fell in love with the idea of young pussy. Your dick got a hard-on for the teenager living with you.”
My blood boils and I push him against the wall, prepared to shove my fist down his throat. “Never refer to Maddie like that.”
“You’re going to ruin her. Hell, you probably already have. In five years, she’s going to be in a therapist’s office, explaining about how the one man who was supposed to take care of her, the only man she ever trusted, took her virginity because she was so confused and she thought she loved him. You should have been the adult that told her that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t right.”
“And what the fuck do you know about love, huh?” I snap. “You don’t know shit about it. It’s why you’re such a fucking dick to Grant. You think Dad loved us? You still think he’s coming back? Grow up, Henry. Dad didn’t love us. He didn’t love Mom!” I scream at him. “Grant has always cared, always put us first, and you hate him over some deep down resentment and twisted loyalty to our father who never gave a shit about you!”
His eyes widen and his mouth drops open, but I still don’t stop. “You think I don’t love Maddie? Then you haven’t been paying fucking attention. Because I’ve always fucking loved that girl. Do you understand me? Always. And yes, now it’s different, and some won’t understand it or support it, but I’ll be damned if they don’t respect it. I’ll be damned if you don’t respect it. I’m almost thirty-four years old. I know what the fuck love is and I love her. And if you can’t understand that, if you can’t see that, then it’s because you don’t know what love looks like. What it means to love someone…unconditionally.”
He takes a step forward and I go for the jugular. I speak the words that everyone says when he’s not around. The worry that coats Mom’s face whenever she spends time with them. The dreaded D word that Grant has asked if I believed they were headed towards. “You d
on’t love Aria. You married her because she was pregnant, and then she wasn’t and it sucks and I’m sorry but you should have gotten a divorce because you didn’t love her. You were scared and you were trying to please Mom, and be a good role model for me, or whatever the fuck, but you don’t fucking love her. So, don’t jump down my throat because I do fucking love someone and you’re jealous that I feel something other than complacency and some bullshit obligation from almost a decade ago.”
It was low, I know it. He knows it. Maddie, who very well may be sitting on the step, knows it. Hurt is written all over his face and I can tell he’s gritting his teeth. “JEALOUS? I’m not jealous of your delusional relationship with Maddie, Cal. Get a fucking grip.”
“It’s not delusional and I’m not working through some fantasy of tasting forbidden fruit. I’d die before I did anything to hurt Maddie. I would never use her to fulfill some sexual deviance. I love her.” I grit out. “You know that’s not what this is about.”
He shakes his head. “How can you not see that this is wrong? She’s so dependent and afraid of losing you that she’s trying to transition you out of guardian and into another role in her life. That’s not how this works. You can’t be both!”
I stand up straighter, puffing my chest out slightly because my aggression has kicked in after he calls my ability to protect her into question. “I am both. Maddie is mine. Ten years ago, she endured the most tragic experience of her life, and I was there. I held her tiny body against my heart as I walked her through hell and in those twenty or so steps from that closet to her front door, she latched onto me and hasn’t let go. I’ve never let her down before, I’m damn sure not going to start now.”
“What kind of life can you give her here?”
“I haven’t given it that much thought what with just figuring out that I wanted her…long term—about twenty minutes ago.”
“Aria is going to lose her shit. So is Mom. And Grant…since you care so Goddamn much about his feelings.”
“And I know I need to tell them. I’m just hoping you give me a chance to do that.”
He looks towards the steps and then sweeps his eyes along the room. “I was always so proud of you. My selfless little brother who put his life on hold to help a little girl who’d lost everything. Who was alone in the world. It was obvious from the start that she loved you so much and you made her feel safe. Can’t you see how difficult this will be for her if things end between you two?”
“They’re not going to end,” I tell him. My voice is firm and final and I don’t even feel a sliver of doubt in my words.
Maybe Henry is right. Maybe all along I’d been falling in love with her. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that made me love her mind and her soul and her heart. The way that made me believe in soulmates. That the second I lifted her tiny body into my arms all those years ago, all of the weight had lifted off of me. All of the hurt of watching my father walk out of my life without another thought to me or Henry, lessened slightly. But if that was the case, if I truly had been preparing myself for the day she turned eighteen so that I could love her body the same way I loved every other part of her, then I know now this is it.
That she is it.
“You don’t know that for sure, Cal.”
“Yes, I do.”
The sniffles coming from her bedroom gut me as I make my way up the stairs. I open her door, and I watch as she cries into her pillow, her shoulders shaking under the force of her sobs. “Baby,” I murmur and then I’m behind her, curling my body around her petite one in an attempt to shield her from all the outside pain. “I’m here. He’s gone.”
She turns in my arms, allowing me a look at her face that’s red and splotchy. Her eyes are glistening from her tears, turning them the brightest shade of blue, and her puffy lips look so soft and sweet. I lean forward and run my tongue across her bottom lip, tasting the salt from her tears. “The things he said…”
“Don’t mean shit to me.”
“He’s your brother.”
“And you’re everything.” I don’t want to say the words. That although we are fighting the previous conventional terms of our relationship, that I do feel something parental over her. And that trumps everything. “There’s no one in this world I’d take over you.”
She bites her bottom lip and squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s so unfair. Your relationship will never be the same. I know you love him. You look up to him. He’s your big brother.”
“He’ll come around. Or maybe he won’t. I don’t care.”
“It’s been years, and he still hasn’t come around to Grant.”
“And that should tell you something. It’s him…not us.” I cup her cheeks and rub my thumbs over the space beneath her eyes, wiping the tears.
She blinks her eyes a few times and I see the tears clear from her blue orbs. “It’s about your dad?”
I shrug because, to be honest, I’m not sure. I was six when my dad left, during a period when I knew something was wrong but couldn’t understand the ramifications it would have on me later in life. Henry was ten and he asked our mother when he’d be back for months and when my mother finally looked at him with tears in her eyes and a glass of Chardonnay filled to the brim and told him he wouldn’t, I watched my big brother break down and sob.
He didn’t stop for six long months.
He remembered things I didn’t. He remembered our father better than I did. I remembered the nice neighbor that taught me to fish and made my mother feel special. The one that took us to dinner and came to my baseball games. The one that fixed things in the house and taught Henry to drive because mom can’t drive for shit. I remembered Grant. I saw the way he looked at my mother. The way that he loved her. It showed me how a man was supposed to love a woman. Henry was drowning in feelings of anger and resentment, too caught up in the pain to realize that Mom was happy. That Grant made Mom happy. He didn’t see the signs and thus is now in a loveless marriage because he’d been angrier for longer than he’d been happy.
That wouldn’t be me.
“To hell with him.” She clears her throat. “Your Dad, I mean.”
I smile at her because she knows my heart and my thoughts before I can breathe them into existence. “To hell with yours too.”
She shivers in my arms and buries herself further into my chest, her lips rubbing against my neck as she talks. I want to finish what we started, to discover her body all over again, but the last thirty minutes had been draining and I know she’s exhausted. “You’re not sick, Cal. Promise me, you’ll never think that what we are is anything else but love. Love in it’s purest form. Nothing dirty or bad or wrong…just a man and woman that were put in each other’s lives to help the other heal and grow and be happy.”
I nod, but then remember she can’t see me as my chin rests on top of her head. “I promise. You and me against the world.”
ONCE WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I witnessed a dog attack another dog. He latched onto the other’s neck and wouldn’t let go until the two owners pulled them apart.
Right now, I feel like that smaller dog with the way Cal is latched onto the space between my legs. I don’t know how many times I’ve come from his tongue in the last hour, but I think it would take divine intervention to get him to let up his tortuous assault. He licks and bites and sucks my clit, baring his teeth every few seconds and nibbling on the sensitive flesh. A slick sheen of sweat coats my body and my heart races in my chest as I feel myself building for another orgasm. “Cal, I can’t take much more.”
He pulls away slightly, his mouth hovering an inch above my sex and I almost climax at the sight of him. The lower half of his face is glistening, and his eyes are dark with desire and hunger. “Your pussy thinks otherwise.” He looks down at me and I follow his gaze. My sex is red and swollen from his beard and my clit is exposed from him spreading my lips for the better part of the past hour. “Just give me one more.”
I bite my lip and nod because who am I to deny this sex God another
chance to make me come? “And then it’s my turn?”
His eyebrows almost shoot off his face and he licks his lips. “Your turn for…”
“Making you come?” I clear my throat and stare at him through hooded slits. “With my mouth.”
“Such filthy words for such an innocent girl.” He growls before lowering his face to rub his tongue through my wet sex. “You want to put your mouth on my cock, little one?”
Say it.
I let out a sigh and let my eyes float upwards. “Yes…Daddy.”
He groans and then he’s back on my pussy, licking me to another soul-shattering orgasm as his fingers bite into my thighs so hard I’m sure he’ll leave marks. Bright lights flash behind my eyelids as I come hard under the force of his mouth. It’s a good thing that Cal has my legs pinned down or else I would have probably suffocated him by now. My eyes open slowly, matching the lethargic movements of the rest of my body. My vision has blurred slightly, but when Cal comes into view, he’s running a hand down his face and swiping his tongue over his lips. I let out a breath and sit up slightly taking note of his sexy body and the look he’s giving me. He doesn’t say anything, he just stares at me, our eyes having a conversation that I don’t think I fully comprehend. “Cal…” I start, wondering if he’s shutting down on me.
“I can’t believe…” He sits back on his heels and runs a hand through his hair. “You’re you. How am I going to explain this to…everyone?”
I clear my throat, preparing to give him an answer although I’m sure his question was half rhetorical. “I thought you didn’t care what anyone thought?” He gives me a look that I read instantly. I lied. I care. I take a deep breath and prepare to speak my greatest fear. “So, what this is already over? Was this all you wanted? One time?”
His eyes are hard and I’m praying I get the reaction I’m hoping for. Anger. He runs his fingertips up my legs, tapping my thigh in equal beats. The beats are in perfect rhythm with the hum between my legs. “You know that I know you better than you know yourself, right?”
